AU envoy sees short 'window of opportunity' on Ethiopia war
CTV
The African Union's envoy for the Horn of Africa warned Monday that there is a short 'window of opportunity' and little time to reverse the crisis in northern Ethiopia which has drastically deteriorated in recent weeks amid an escalating offensive by Tigray forces against the government.
Olusegun Obasanjo told the UN Security Council that after talks with Ethiopia's president and prime minister, and the presidents of the Tigray and Oromo regions whose forces are fighting government troops, he can say that they all "agree individually that the differences between them are political and require political solution through dialogue."
The former Nigerian president, who briefed the UN's most powerful body from Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa, said he will visit Tigray's neighboring Amhara and Afar regions on Tuesday to harmonize the views of leaders in the area on the "withdrawal of the troops from regions that are not theirs, and also in maintaining humanitarian access."
"Before the end of this week," Obasanjo said, "we hope to have a program in hand that will indicate how we can get the humanitarian and the withdrawal of troops all together to meet the ... immediate demand of the stakeholders" on both sides of the conflict.
Obasanjo and U.S. envoy Jeffrey Feltman have been holding urgent talks in search of a cease-fire in the year-old war that has killed thousands.
